The future of Business Services Sector in Poland

The business world has been experiencing a period of high dynamics and a time of intensive search for various sources of building or increasing of competitive advantage on the local or global market in the last few years. Companies have sought to reduce costs, find cheaper resources, focus on high quality services and search ways to reach expert knowledge. This has been a time of a dynamic development of operating models that considered handing over of certain functions and processes from the enterprise to a separate service provider, in-house or outside. The business services sector in Poland has been growing of up to 20% annually on the average, as per the ABSL 2020 Annual Report.

Post COVID – 19 business landscape

Today, after COVID – 19 hit in March, all traditional business aspects such as: cost cutting and/or delivering service “as usual” are not enough for the management. There is a strong desire and business expectation for flexibility, understanding of changing business needs, the highest possible quality of service, the most advanced technologies/analytical tools and, finally, the complex reskilling plan.

Let’s get a closer look at some of the most important aspects of the new agile operating model (AOM), which need to be revised and changed in order for the organizations to "stay in the game" or even survive. AOM main areas of action: 

1) introduction of the hybrid/mix model on-site & remote work – will be more effective, when ergonomics will be properly addressed. When working station at the remote location will be equally well equipped reflecting the employee needs together with all the health & safety regulations. When technology will be updated and organized to ensure business security. When full cost of the employee will be properly calculated and allocated for the time of working in the office and working in the remote mode. When creativity and motivation aspects will be nourished in the organized and thought-through manner. Finally, when development of future competences will be properly designed and delivered.  

2) office space efficiency aspect - new operating model will for sure define new needs and new cost structure. The need for redesign and recalculation will bring some new solutions such as more hot desks on one hand and more quiet rooms or even more closed spaces such as individual offices or per small groups on the other. The open space era is gone!

3) new recruitment formula – the process seems to be the easiest to step up onto the remote solution with the perfect organization on-line. There will be more and more robotized solutions to include in the process E2E (end to end => need for recruitment, interviewing, placing, training, developing, outplacing).

4) highest ever focus on RPA solutions – all C-level executive eyes are now focused on RPA (Robotic Process Automation). Current COVID-19 crises has proved it does not have to be difficult, expensive and lengthy process. There might be as only as 6 weeks needed to screen an organization to filter all process elements to get robotized and save millions PLN annually. Following HFS Research, where we can read that “it took a pandemic to create the burning platform for automation” confirmed by 55% of surveyed enterprises where the spending on automation will significantly increase!      

5) strong focus on resiliency, agility & flexibility there is no other way, only to get flexible and react fast for the organization to be always ahead of the competition. Agile operating model will focus on newly designed competences, automation solutions, new mix of distribution channels, fully integrated organization, dynamic product portfolio and best mix of in-house and outsourced business.

6) greater interest in outsourcing, as a strategic model element – and here we are with the FUTURE of the BSS. The outsourcing will be even more attractive than ever!

7) in many organizations labour cost will no longer be a number ONE on the priorities list in favour of technology and competence aspects to secure business & operational continuity.

Is the future of the business services sector in Poland as bright as the last 20 years?

Although the COVID–19 crisis itself is not a good thing, it has given great opportunities for the BSS organisations in Poland to prove outsourcing is here to stay and become much more attractive when compared to some off-shore destinations. Polish-based BSS firms ensured business continuity and uninterrupted support to their clients, both locally and globally. High level of technology advancement, operational maturity, managerial competences, and fully remote work formula are the main characteristics and success factors of the Business Services Sector organisations in Poland. In the survey conducted by Gekko advisoryNOW(GAN), among BSS managers, there is almost 60% who believe outsourcing will become the scheme of choice for the coming years. 56% is happy to see much faster implementation of RPA solutions and 44% is ready to redesign current operating models to become resilient, agile and flexible. The readiness of 44% surveyed managers to include much more complex processes in the BSS product portfolio is also very interesting. Finally, there is also an expectation that Poland will become an even more attractive location, when compared to higher risk offshore destinations (almost 60% answered this as very highly probable). All surveyed agreed that Poland and some countries in the CEE region will have great momentum to attract new investors, both to set-up new BSS centres or move operations from less reliable, when it comes to business continuity, global locations. Now is the time for the business to consider a “cost-effectiveness-continuity” balanced approach rather than just cost when deciding on outsourcing.

The crises is likely to have a significant impact on accelerating the growth of Business Services Sector in Poland, 25% expects the sector to grow more than 10% on average for the next 5 years, while 63% expects the growth to be somewhere between 5%-10%. No one predicts decline.

The article was published in C-SuiteNEWs by Gekko advisoryNOW https://www.advisorynow.pl/en/publikacje/c-suitenews-wydanie-lipcowe